


Our Puddle is Deceptively Deep

by calrissian18



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Smash, Future Fic, M/M, Pining, Pop Culture References Out the Yang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:17:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5714038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They start out in a literal tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Puddle is Deceptively Deep

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically every idea I've had in the past four months smush-crammed into one ickle story - I am unapologetic about that. Also, totally kept my word (yeah, I remembered that I gave it, thankyou) and this one is from Derek's PoV.

“This isn’t going to work,” Derek mutters from the corner of his mouth, squinting down at the hazy figure of Scott.  He’s ill-defined in the splattering rain.

Ill-defined even without it; an Alpha without a killer instinct.  He’s going to get someone killed, even odds that it’ll be himself.

Stiles is right behind him, panting, falling as much as climbing.  Derek winces each time his foot slips against a branch, the tread scraping bark like nails on a chalkboard.  He says, puffing, “Rose-colored glasses, I’m getting ‘em, you’re wearing them.  What would that even be _like_ , do you think?  A day without Derek, the little black rain cloud.”

Derek turns around to glare at him.

Stiles isn’t paying attention, has his hand stretched out so rain patters onto his palm.  Derek can just barely catch the soft hum of, ‘Little Black Rain Cloud,’ over the rain.

He’s so _young_.  Stiles makes it easy to forget at times; they all do.  Derek looks back at Scott.  He is too, just a drowned boy out past his bedtime.  He stands up on his branch.  If it holds, there’s a chance he could drop in on the troll before it can decide to reject Scott’s attempts at negotiation, smack him aside like an insignificant twig.

He tests the branch with the sole of his boot, takes a step only to realize he’s anchored in place.  By Stiles’ hand, his expression above it furious.  He doesn’t look surprised by Derek’s plan in the least, says forcefully, “ _No_.”  Like this is an argument they’ve already had.

Derek rolls his eyes.  “Stiles.”  The troll is never going to accept Scott as Alpha of this territory.  They’re going to have to fight their way out, it’s inevitable.  If they don’t strike soon they’ll lose the element of surprise.

Stiles opens his mouth, face screwed up, argument on his tongue.  “I—” He stops, flounders for a half-second then changes tack.  The hand on Derek’s arm tugs with all the strength Stiles has behind it (more than Derek would’ve guessed) and he slams their faces together.

Stiles’ lips glance off his, mouths misaligned, and Derek jerks back through nothing more than instinct.  Stiles grabs him before he can get far, deceptively large hands on either side of his head, index fingers of both in front of Derek’s ears, holding him still.  “Maybe this isn’t something you have to fight.”  It’s shaky, uneven, a suggestion and not a manipulation and whatever Stiles sees in his face has him dropping his hands, tightening his fingers on Derek’s shoulders.

Derek hears his swallow so close to him it crashes in like a wave.  His heartbeat is the slowest Derek’s ever heard it, underscoring deep breaths, a beat, a breath, a nose brushing his cheek, lips pressing to his upper one, Stiles’ long lashes fanned across his cheeks.  He’s cold and his skin is slick and Derek touches him, holds him, one hand wrapped around soaking plaid and the other resting on his hip.

It’s been a long time since he’s been this close to anyone.

Stiles backs off like he knows it.  Waits.  Eyes closed.  Leans.  Kisses his lower lip this time and Derek puts pressure back into it, not quite a return as much as an acceptance.  Hands tighten on his shoulders again and the press of Stiles’ mouth is more insistent, so much so that Derek’s opens and that’s all Stiles needs.  Surges into him, his whole body arching, breathing into Derek’s.  He doesn’t pull away again, is all sloppy breaths and teeth and thrusting tongue and it’s messy and disorienting and his hands start to roam.  Up Derek’s neck, threading long fingers into his hair, cupping a palm down his arm, then under, against his chest, down his side, crossing his back.  Stiles’ hands are everywhere, too fast, boundaryless, like there’s no part of Derek he doesn’t want to know.

His skin is broken out in goosebumps, a fine tremor running through him and Derek draws him in closer, hand anchored in the small of Stiles’ back, like he can keep him from mere discomfort through just the shelter of his body.  Their lips are dragging, wet, Stiles’ swelling and Derek scrapes his teeth against plump pink one more time, bites his jaw and smells Stiles’ arousal, cloying and heavy, and his desperation, an acid sharpness to it.  The water on his skin, down his neck, is flavored by youth and eagerness and Derek doesn’t stop tasting it until Stiles’ fingers are back to digging into his shoulders, bruising and rebruising his skin, pushing him back firmly.

Derek feels dazed, like he’s recalibrating after a punch to the gut, and Stiles drags in a shaky breath as though he has to fight for it, lets it out roughly with a guttural, “I love you.”

The words hit him harder than the kiss and though the world is utterly still in that moment, but for the relentless bucketing down of the rain, he feels like the whole tree beneath them wobbles precariously.  He opens his mouth to say no, to say he’s wrong, to tell him about all the things he doesn’t know about those words.  He’s all stern, edged tone and brows when he starts, “Sti—”

Stiles shakes his head, lets out a high, uneven laugh.  The hands on Derek’s shoulders flex and don’t loosen.  “See,” he says, strident, “you were gonna charge all in there with a no percent exit strategy, because who the fuck cares about your life, right?”  His fingers dig in so hard Derek winces.  “S’already been stun-sticked, dragged through wolfsbane and has some really unattractive singe-marks on it so why not just toss it out?  You’d be doing everyone a favor, probably.  But me?  This guy?”  He laughs again, still sans amusement.  “I’ve gotten all attached to the wrecked thing so you thinking: who cares?  Me, _I_ cares.”  He shakes Derek slightly in his grip.  “For what it’s worth, and I realize it might be pretty much zilch, I would be devastated if you died.”  He’s not meeting Derek’s wide eyes, his own hooded, whole face shadowed in its downturn.  “And I mean that, Derek.  Devastated.  Probably on the ‘never fully recovers’ end of the spectrum actually so,” he bites his lip, it’s shining with Derek’s spit still, “so if you do decide you need to be in the middle of all of it, try really, _really_ hard to still be breathing by the end of it.”

Derek can’t speak.  Stiles’ voice is stripped and raw, not jocular or removed ten steps behind a cast-iron wall of sarcasm and indifference.  He’s right here, right in front of Derek, all his parts laid bare and it’s not something Derek knew Stiles was even capable of.  Let alone for him.

He wants to look away from him, out to their newest threat, his latest death wish.  He doesn’t.  He stares at Stiles and says quietly, barely audible over the splash of the rain, almost hoping the words will be washed away, “This is the right move.”

Stiles’ fingers tense and ease on his shoulders and he says, face still downcast, “Yeah but that’s not your call to make anymore.”  Derek jerks in his grip from the unexpected blow and Stiles’ hands tighten.  He does look up then, defiant, challenging, jaw clenched.  “That doesn’t have to be an insult,” he says, tone hard.  He licks his lower lip, it’s still swollen, still red from Derek’s mouth.  He offers unassumingly, “Maybe—maybe it’s just an opportunity now.”

Derek blinks.  He’s not an Alpha anymore; not in charge even by default.  He thought they might still think… that since Scott had come to his station in such a backwards way, with no leadership to guide him, still in high school, still sure he was better than needing ambiguous morals, that they would look to him and he’d have to be there to be looked to.  Only Stiles is saying... he’s saying he’s not tied down here anymore.

Not unless he wants to be.

Scott’s shout pulls them both around and Chris and a ragtag gang of hunters with flares and automatic weapons are swarming the troll from the woods opposite them.

Stiles’ hands slip off his shoulders and he says, mouth twisted bitterly, “Look at that, Scott had a contingency plan.”  Derek lets out a huff and Stiles’ face shutters closed.  “One he didn’t tell us about.  Again.”

 

* * *

 

Derek follows Stiles home, stops him at his door, hand pressed flat to the wood to keep it from closing on him, jaw working while he gets out jerkily, “What you said—”

Stiles shakes his head, cuts him off.  “It wasn’t a question; I didn’t say it because I was looking for an answer.”  Now it’s Derek who can’t look at him, Stiles whose eyes are locked on his downturned expression.  He doesn’t expect anything, isn’t going to make Derek struggle through trying to come up with a response.

It’s nicer than he deserves.

His hand slips off the door and he says, “Okay.”

Stiles walks inside and closes it in his face.

 

* * *

 

Derek comes back a week later.  It’s not an easy decision to make but he owes Stiles something.  The what and why are fuzzier but the sense of debt is something he understands.

He’s already standing with his back resting on the edge of Stiles’ desk, arms crossed over his chest, when Stiles comes into his bedroom.  There’s a slight start of surprise but Stiles manages to keep his movements fairly fluid, continuing to sweep off his backpack and throw it onto his bed.  His pale complexion is flushed with patches of pink like he’d taken the stairs two at a time.  Derek works his jaw, drops his arms, clenches his hands into fists, unable to get comfortable in his own skin, says, “I can’t stay here.”

Stiles’ eyes narrow and he’s already mid-argument and snark as he steps up into Derek’s space and snarls, “I didn’t ask you to.”

Goddamn it, he’s already messed this up.  He rubs at the back of his neck, glances at Stiles’ carpet rather than his furious eyes and bursts out, “Fuck, Stiles, I’m not—I’m—”  He looks back at him, words failing him as they so often do, hoping Stiles can read him in that way he just _does_.

Derek can see he gets it right away, falls back a step and says in a small voice, “Oh.”  He mindlessly retreats all the way back to his bed, knees butting up against mattress.   “You’re saying goodbye.  That’s, yeah.”  He looks up again and says seriously, “I appreciate that.”

He doesn’t seem hurt or surprised, at least not beyond the idea that Derek’s taken his words to heart, but Derek has to make sure he knows.  This part, this is important.

He gestures between them and struggles to say, “It’s not because of…”

Stiles waves it away and says, “No, I get it.”  His heartbeat is steady.  He does.  He understands because that seems to be what Stiles does with Derek.  “It’s hard to find inner peace in this town, right?”

Derek tenses at the flippancy of his words, mutters, “I’m not looking for inner peace.”

Stiles shrugs without judgment.  “Maybe you should be.”

Derek thinks about kissing him again.  About making his cheeks go from pink to red, about slicking up his lips, leaving him keening into him, knees buckled, eyes wanting, but he’s not the selfish type, never really wanted anything for himself before now and knows better than to think he gets to have it.  He leaves out the window without another word because that’s all they are, two people who don’t owe each other anything, who were only ever a maybe, full of silent understanding and too much left unsaid.

 

* * *

 

He drives three states away before he works up the nerve to call Cora.  Their parting had been awkward.  A half-aborted back-pat and stumbling request that she take care of herself while she’d shifted her weight and looked at his forehead rather than into his eyes.  He still didn’t really know her and thought he might cling to her for just the promise of something familiar.

He’d been mostly afraid, though, that if he’d stayed with her he’d turn her into Laura.

She picks up on the second ring and he’s half-surprised the number works, asks without preamble, “Where are you?”

He can hear her chewing around the answer: “Belize.”

That’s not what he expected.  “What for?”

There’s a brief buzz of static and then Cora’s bland: “The Alpha pack, burned down childhood home, dead family members, murdered best friend, freaky as fuck uncle, impossible future.  Oh right, no, the opposite of all of that.”

“Funny,” Derek says back, deadpan.  He drums his fingers against his steering wheel, stares up at the the sign that says, ‘WE I.D.,’ on the gas station door and breathes.  “Currently in the market for that myself.”

Cora says, “I’ll text you the address,” and hangs up.  The text comes through not even a minute later.

 

* * *

 

Cora’s tan and relaxed, eats whipped cream on everything and spends seventy-five percent of her time rolling her eyes at what comes out of Derek’s mouth.  Derek’s been there five years, is as comfortable as if he’s been there five minutes.  He still isn’t tan.  Or relaxed.  Wishes there was less sand everywhere, that Cora would wear more clothes and that he wasn’t encouraged out of doors quite so often by the relentless sunshine, or his relentless sister.

They’ll never be what he and Laura were, aren’t close, don’t have much shared between them aside from DNA but they’re family and it more creeps up on them than is a known fact – when they remember all the words to the same song, when a girl with brown eyes and a heart-shaped face makes both their mouths purse, when Derek automatically switches off _Jurassic Park_ at the kitchen scene because the last time he’d seen her, Cora hadn’t been able to watch it.  She has more memories with the Alpha Pack than she does with the family Derek remembers though, and she’s living her life to forget what came before.

Derek, on the other hand, has his claws dug in to what he was, convinced that’s the only way forward: backward.

Cora hasn’t commented on that.  Doesn’t insert herself into much of Derek’s life and expects him to follow that example, so he does.  He wouldn’t offer up anything anyway.  Him handing out advice has got to be at least a misdemeanor criminal offense by now.  All Cora’s said, deduced within a week of his living with her, is: ‘You’re bad at the beach.  Who’s bad at _the beach_?  It’s a beach.  Read a book, drink a fruity drink, _stop scowling_.’

It’s that advice that indirectly led to his current predicament.

“You could have said.”  Michele sighs so diligently it makes her nostrils flare.  Derek catches it in his periphery, too committed to counting the granules of spilled salt on the diner counter between them to look at her full-on.  He counts her heartbeats instead when that fails at distracting him from the scent of her disappointment—one, two, three, four, five, six—she sighs again.

Something’s burning in the kitchen.  It’s a crisp, dark smell that still makes Derek’s skin crawl.  “I didn’t know.”  It might be true.

“You knew,” she says with a scoff, brushing auburn hair off her shoulder.  A chunk of it’s still trapped by her spaghetti strap.  He appreciates that she scoffs instead of eye-rolls.  “You knew you couldn’t get invested with that,” she plucks her straw from her drink and jabs it towards his chest, droplets of water spraying his hands and t-shirt.  She doesn’t seem to notice.  She points it down and adds, “just with _that_.  And even that was—” She sticks the straw in her mouth, chews, and moves her hand from side to side to indicate: ‘iffy.’

Derek’s ears flush and his shoulders tense up around them.  There had been nights, nights when there wasn’t enough light left in the world to remind him of who she wasn’t.

She pulls the straw from between her teeth, twirls it in the air.  Now there’s spit in addition to water on Derek’s hands.  “I’m not heartbroken,” she admits and Derek is glad to hear her heart doesn’t skip a beat—forty-seven, forty-eight, “but it would’ve been nice to have a heads up.  For future reference, it’s considered good manners to tell the girl you’re fucking, ‘Still damn stupid over the one that got away.’”

Derek’s swallow creaks down his throat.  He carefully drags his hands from the table, digs his nails into his knees in the hope that’ll stop his claws from peeking through his thin control.  Is that how he’s going to have to refer to Kate now?  ‘The one that got away?’  From the throat-ripping she so rightfully deserved, from his teeth, from his claws, from his guilt.

“Open communication seems to be a struggle, I get that, maybe embroider it on a throw pillow?” she offers, deepening her voice – apparently to imitate him.  Badly, “‘Met the love of my life ages back, bone anyway?’  You’re still going to get just as many takers, informed ones though.”

Derek blinks at her, baffled.  “I didn’t.  I’m not.”  They’re words he doesn’t quite mean to say.  Words he’s not entirely sure are his.

It’s not Kate she’s talking about.

His nails are leaving crescent marks in the skin of his knees through his jeans.

“Uh huh, whoever’s in there,” she gets up and jabs a finger into his temple, partly just to be vindictive, “you haven’t given up on her.”  She snatches up her purse, waves at the day manager with each individual finger, mostly unbothered, and leaves.

Cora slides into her seat as soon as the door’s jingled closed behind her.  She’s eating the oyster crackers the owner keeps telling her not to eat while she’s working.  She swipes the crumbs from them aside, along with them go the thirty-three salt granules Derek had diligently counted.

“Do you even know how to embroider?” she asks, mouth full.  Derek stares at the table and she flops back against her side of the booth when she realizes he's too deep inside his own head to be any fun.  She sinks down and says, “Stilinski, right?”

Derek shakes his head absentmindedly.  He doesn’t think about him.  He knows, because that’s the thought he gets to have about Stiles.  The only one.

 _Don’t think about him_.

“I’m not going back,” he croaks.

Cora offers him her standard eye-roll.  She leans across the table and reaches for his arm.  Squeezes, tight.  “Yes, you are.  You’re not abandoning me, okay?  That was me.  I did that to you,” she shrugs unapologetically, lopsidedly, “and I’d do it again.  I love you but not enough to kill myself there.  It’s not my home, but it’s yours and they have these new-fangled communication devices called cell phones now.  You don’t even have to talk, just angry-breathe into the receiver once a week if you want.”

“Beacon Hills isn’t my home either.”  It isn’t.  It hadn’t been long before he left it.

Eye-roll number two is a much bigger production.  “I’m not talking about the _place_ , idiot.”

 

* * *

 

He calls Scott first, asks permission.  Scott seems confused by the gesture but enthusiastic all the same.  Starts catching Derek up on him, on Kira, on his mom.  He doesn’t mention Stiles.  It seems purposeful, glaring in the oversight, and maybe it’s childish but Derek grinds his teeth and doesn’t ask.  If this is a test then he has no idea if he’s passed or failed it.

He does know the outcome is the same: he has a acid-in-his-gut _need_ to clap eyes on Stiles and no way of doing that.  Five years.  Five years is a long time, time for someone to become entirely unrecognizable, to shed skin and make a new go at the world.  Derek doesn’t know anything about that except this is where he left Stiles all those years ago, in his bedroom, wanting to kiss him and walking away instead.

He thinks he’s done with that part now.

He should go back to the loft.  The building manager’s been taking in tenants.  Derek’s been ignoring his emails since he scanned past the line, ‘retain yours as is,’ in the first one.  He has a room, a life he can step right back into – if he could call it that.  He’d been adamant about leaving that door open.

In retrospect, it’s even more painfully obvious why.

He’s been sitting at a light that’s gone through three rotations, deciding which way to turn, when his phone vibrates on the seat next to him.  It’s Scott, with an address that’s on the outskirts of town in the exact opposite direction.  It rumbles in Derek’s hands with the follow-up message:

_use it well_

Derek swings around at the light and, fifteen minutes later, is pulling into an overgrown gravel driveway astride a shrugging bungalow.  It’s old, and wooden and smells like rot.  The roof is bent down the middle, the support beams on the porch looking as if they’re reconsidering the precursor, becoming just ‘beams.’  Plant life is creeping up on it, vines and weeds and ivy infiltrating the slats, boards, railings, trying to drag it back into the woods behind it.  It’s dark, dank and empty and the mailslot is belching out flyers for local pizza and (laughably) yard services.

The door’s unlocked.  Derek doesn’t go inside because he’s not that guy anymore.  Or Stiles isn’t.  They’re not those people, not now, not again, not yet.  He sits on the top step, hands clasped between his knees and squints out into the dark.

Stiles is all growling, clunky gear changes two hours later, spilling out of his beat-up old Jeep and only looking half-surprised to see him.

He’s taller than Derek remembers.  Or maybe he just stands up straighter, with confidence that comes from other people’s hands, smiles, mouths, affection.  His cheeks go fuller when he grins, eyes brighter, long fingers, strong forearms finally matching to a long torso, strong frame.

He’s—he’s _more_ than Derek remembers.  Not quite the nervous, socially awkward boy he’s had fixed in his memory.

Derek stands, leans up against the wall next to the mailbox, going for nonchalant.

Stiles’ eyes are crinkled, teeth white and straight and he says with a soft lilt to it, “Hey.”  Derek’s heart drops into his stomach.  Stiles’ voice is warm, deep, bottomless.  Derek wants to sink into it.  He shouldn’t have come here.  He should never leave here.  Stiles hitches a smile up one side of his face, keeps going, friendly, inclusive, like Derek’s been off for a week and not years, “Scott said I might see you.  Didn’t think it would be on purpose, at my _door_ , thought maybe I’d catch you mid-loom.”  He jingles the car keys in his hand, scratches his thumbnail against his eyebrow, points at Derek around them, still all amiability and warmth, “I still remember how you were all about that, the committed looming.”

Derek swallows, stares, drops his eyes down to the rise of Stiles’ chest, to the catch of his jeans.  He jerks his eyes back up, to the flutter at Stiles’ throat, asks it with stuttering breath the only question in the whole of his head, “Are you—Is there anyone?”

Stiles lets out a harsh breath through his nose, drops his keys and buries a hand in his messy hair, saying desperately, “Derek, come on, fuck, even if there _was_.”

It’s impossible to believe there was ever space between them, that Stiles wasn’t always wrapped up in him, plastered to him, mouths catching and sliding and groaning into and against each other’s.  Derek drags him back, doesn’t open the door so much as slam into it hard enough that it whines open.

His hand is on Stiles’ neck, sliding, stroking, the other tugging frantically at his jeans, Stiles’ fingers tangling up in his hair once he finally gets him on his back, barely in the door, pulls down his briefs to find him half-hard, to work him to painfully aroused with nothing more than his throat, his mouth, his passion for the taste and smell and _everything_ of him.

Stiles is loud, with expletives, with moans and groans and whines, with Derek’s name.  He’s especially loud with Derek’s name, like he’s been holding onto it, biting it back for all the years he hasn’t got to say it, like it’s built up on him.

Stiles comes in his mouth.  Derek resists the urge to swallow, unbuckles his belt, drags down his pants, grabs Stiles up by his thighs onto the shelf of his own, spits Stiles’ come into his hand and uses it as lube to work him open, to get him loose, and it’s all he can do not to blow his load before he gets inside, all he can do to wait till Stiles is grasping at his arms, digging bruises into his biceps, his shoulders, and it’s familiar, it’s the next step he never got to have and he pushes inside and Stiles says, “Derek, fuck, _Derek_ ,” and drags him so close that they’re practically rutting on the bare floorboards, the muscles of Derek’s thighs flexing, the toes of his boots pushing off the floor to get deeper.

His eyes are starting to water and he slams his fist into the ground, trying to keep himself from orgasm even a second longer, the other hand wrapped up in the small of Stiles’ back, angling his hips, anything to keep this feeling in his chest building and expanding and cascading down his insides.  Stiles’ nails scratch down his jacket, and he bites into the leather with his teeth, holds Derek so close and there’s sweat and good – so much fucking _good_ – and the contraction of Stiles’ stomach, the scrunch of his eyebrows, the way he’s biting his lip and still making so much noise that Derek can’t doubt for one second he’s feeling everything Derek’s feeling.

The tension is right there about to burst and Stiles arches his back, lets out a gasping moan and Derek falls into it, comes hard and blindingly good and Stiles’ hands let him know he’s welcome to all of it, burying in his damp hair, guiding Derek’s head to the cradle of his neck, mapping him out, surveying and studying and learning him.

Stiles laughs, breathless, says with affected blandness, “Welcome home.”

Derek grunts, rolls off him, pants still open and says, “Yeah, it was.”  He’s smiling, can’t stop, skin slick and warm and Stiles close enough to touch.  He can’t honestly envision ever getting farther away than this again.

 

* * *

 

Stiles’ bed smells like other people, stale and lacking but present enough to get an unpleasant whiff of it every time the bungalow creaks with the wind.  He’s at the community college, on the other side of town, and Derek looks around at the dripping faucet, the piles of rumpled clothing, the squeaking mattress, the school he’s too smart for and wants better for him and doesn’t say so.

Because maybe Stiles is settling with him too.  If he is then Derek doesn’t want to know it.

He thinks this might be how they start moving forward though.  Derek will stop trying to double-back and Stiles will stop treading water and they’ll figure things out now that they have two heads to put to the task.

They fuck again on Stiles’ bed, Stiles on top of him, back to his chest, not riding so much as grinding back into him and Derek has never had sex like this before.  It’s never _clicked_ the way they seem to, never left him wrung out and satisfied and let him sleep so well in an unfamiliar bed.

He invites Stiles back to the loft before he’s been to it himself.  He gets a few hours while Stiles is in class to make it livable again, opens the windows to air out the settled, heavy feeling of the place, changes his sheets, takes a shower, makes himself coffee half for the smell of it and tries not to hang around by the door.

Stiles doesn’t knock, walks in with a whistle and says as soon as he spots Derek, almost like he’s impressed, “You got the loft back.”

Derek shrugs.  “I own the building.”

Stiles blinks.  “Did not know that.”  He thumbs over his shoulder, back towards the hall.  His eyebrows lift up, amused.  “You have tenants now.”

Derek gets he’s being teased and doesn’t care, all he can even think is: “Can I fuck you?”

Stiles laughs, wide-mouthed and happy, takes off his jacket and backpack in the same movement.  “So kind of you to ask.”  He flutters his eyelashes.  “Manners like those—”

Derek pins him up against the door, takes control of his mouth with a sloppy, desperate kiss.  He wonders how long the novelty of getting to just _do this_ is going to hang around.  He grabs Stiles up by his hips, his ass, wants him in his bed, his body, his scent, his moans.

Stiles, thankfully, seems willing to oblige.

Stiles is even louder this time, like he’s trying to fill the endless open space of Derek’s loft with his own tidal wave of sound, when he comes the veins in his neck pop with a full-bodied groan and he drags Derek down into him, rolls over him and takes Derek’s orgasm upon himself.

It takes a long time for Derek to catch his breath, after.

Stiles gets to speaking first.  He yawns, brushes a fingertip against Derek’s thigh.  “Where were you?”  His voice is lazy, stupid and lax with oncoming sleep.

“Cora,” Derek tells him.  “Belize.”

Stiles’ grin is tired, wobbles.  The backs of his fingers stroke down the outside of Derek’s thigh.  “How did you stomach the sand in your fur?” he asks, amused and unimaginative.  He’s done more with less and Derek snorts, unimpressed.  “Grooming must’ve been a killer expense.”

“That’s number one on the list of things I didn’t miss,” Derek says, trying for sour and almost certainly coming off smitten.  He’s got to relearn that, seeming unaffected by Stiles, though he’s starting to doubt he was ever as good at it as he thought he was.  He rolls over onto his stomach, punches the pillow up under his head and turns so he can stare at Stiles.  His eyelashes are remarkably long, mouth slack and inviting, eyes warm and focused on him.  “I didn’t think about you.”  He thumbs at Stiles’ lower lip.   His eyes crinkle.  “I gave myself a daily reminder to not think about you.”  He pulls his hand away, shrugs up a shoulder.  “Were there things you thought?  Not-thought?”

Stiles hums, grins hugely, says, “I was busy fucking models, paragons of mental health, age appropriate non-supernatural creatures who wanted to slow-bone to sweet jazz.”

Derek looks away from him, rolls onto his back again and says without heat and a slight smile, “Fuck you.”

Stiles’ hand slides onto his chest and Derek pounces on it, holding it there.  “It’s never been this easy with anyone else,” he says seriously, tapping his fingers against Derek’s skin in a pattern Derek can’t decipher.  “That probably means something.”

Derek smirks, just to be an asshole.  “Dunno, sounds like you’re fishing for meaning in a puddle.”

Stiles frowns thoughtfully, not taking the bait, propped up on an elbow to look into Derek’s face.  “Our puddle is deceptively deep, I think,” he decides.

 

* * *

 

Derek doesn’t connect the dirty looks he gets on the stairs with their regular enthusiastic fucking until he opens his mailbox and finds the shoved-in piece of plain printer paper that says, ‘ _Other people besides you and your boyfriend live here_.’  He’s fairly certain he doesn’t even need werewolf senses to figure out it’s his downstairs neighbor’s doing.  Everything about him, including the paper, smells like AXE body spray and desperation.

Derek writes on the back of it:

 _I own the building, I can change that_.

And shoves it back under the prick’s door.  He likes that Stiles is loud, likes that there’s no question about how much Stiles wants him, enjoys him, and he won’t have anybody shame him into being anything else.  Especially not since Stiles spends more time here than his own rented ramshackle now, as the loft is closer to the college campus and the sheriff’s, quieter with less creaks and groans of the place settling, and nicer, roomier – more what Stiles deserves.

Especially not since Derek is happy. 

He walks back into the loft with a stack of junk mail and the package he’d gone down to pick up.  He decides maybe he doesn’t hate sunlight when Stiles is hunched over in it, legs sprawled out under Derek’s coffee table, eyes scanning the pages of his used textbook on top of it.  He glances up, biting absentmindedly at his thumbnail, and complains, “Fuck Kant, for real, the guy’s long-winded and basically useless _and_ Professor Dartmouth is obsessed with him.  Oh hey, Derek, by the way, did I tell you my professor went to Dartmouth and could be doing influential, life-altering crap and instead is teaching at the community college in Beacon Backwoods Hills because he’s just _that big a person_ , taking pity on all us mentally-challenged future minimum wage earners?”

“I heard something about that.  And I can still claw his car.”  Derek perks an eyebrow.  “In the shape of the Dartmouth crest, to be respectful.”

“I appreciate that,” Stiles says, waving it away, checking back in with the book.  “Also fuck Elias, the previous owner of this gem of a textbook, for not understanding that when you _highlight_ you’re supposed to still be able to _see the fucking words_.”  He slams his own highlighter down into the table and strips out of his plaid overshirt, turning to Derek.  “I’m going to go drown myself in your shower.”

Derek nods at him, waiting for him to leave the room to open the box.  He pulls out the brand new book, walks over to where Stiles has left his open on the table, flips it to the same page and switches them out.  He leaves the crap one, cardboard ripping, pages doodled and colored and ripped, on the kitchen counter so Stiles can return it.

Stiles comes back out ten minutes later in Derek’s t-shirt and his own jeans, scrubbing at his damp hair with his knuckles like he’s trying to kick the brain under it into working.  He flops back down, sighs heavily enough that his shoulders slump with it and goes back to reading.

He stops, blinks, lifts up the cover to check it and looks up at Derek.  “You got the right edition and everything.”

“You complain a lot,” he says, grinning.  He shrugs.  “The cost-benefit analysis checked out.”

Stiles stands up, wraps his arms around Derek’s shoulders and rubs his nose into his neck.  “Be less into me, dude, you’re embarrassing yourself,” he huffs.  He’s practically melted into Derek and he says, _whines_ , “I really, really want you to fuck me.”

 

* * *

 

Derek gets two annoyed letters and the stink-eye for a week after that one.

He’s pretty sure he can do better the next time.

 

* * *

 

Derek can’t catch his breath, Stiles’ moan reverberating in the heavy, sex-damp air around them and rattling along the planes of Derek’s bones, leaving his entire body shaking.  He grips harder at Stiles’ hip, the heel of his palm pushing him hard into the counter’s edge, other arm slung across the breadth of Stiles’ shoulders, wrapped around him from behind, fingers digging into his bicep.  Stiles’ toenails making tiny, crescent-shaped indents in the skin at the hill of his foot, toes still curled.

Derek scrapes his stubbled jaw against the soft inside of Stiles’ neck, drags his dry lower lip over the hammer of his pulse, breathing warm, damp breath into warm, damp skin.  Stiles tries to disconnect from him and Derek reflexively tugs him back, pumps his hips lazily, thumb coming up to smooth under the curve of Stiles’ shoulder blade, sliding through beads of sweat and against soft skin.

Stiles shivers, groans, sighs and his toes unfurl, stretch.  His fingers stay clenched around the counter of Derek’s kitchen island, holding them both upright.

He scrubs knuckles up from Derek’s neck into his uncomfortably slick hair and all his muscles unwind at once.  Derek lets out his own decompressing breath and pulls away from Stiles’ warm body heat.

Stiles scratches at his throat with a hum, bumps Derek back further with his ass leading the charge so he has enough space to turn around and say, accusatory finger in Derek’s face and all, “You started that one.”

Derek raises an eyebrow.  “You stuck your hand down my pants.  Unprovoked.”

Stiles doesn’t look impressed, counters Derek’s eyebrow with both of his.  “Um, _all the provocation_.  You were wearing sweatpants. _Only_ sweatpants.”  He crosses his arms over his chest, raises his chin like the defiant shit he is.  “You started that one.”

Derek rolls his eyes.  “I apologize for the seductive attire.”

Stiles nods approvingly.  “Good.  You should.  Harlot.”  He snatches for his jeans—they’d barely managed to get them all way off, meaning they’re right near his feet—and tugs them on.  Derek’s nostrils flare over the lack of briefs, the scent of he and Stiles catching in his nostrils.  The finger comes back to poke at Derek’s naked chest.  “I told you I had studying to do.  You’re every bit the bad influence my dad warned me you’d be.  Next stop is teen pregnancy, dropping out of high school and stripping.”

“You’re twenty-two, you’ve already graduated and people keep paying you to keep your clothes _on_.”

Stiles’ cheeks go an even splotchier red.  “That restaurant was a frickin’ sauna, okay?  I had every right to shed a couple layers.”

“I think they only objected to the shirt, shoes and socks portion of the clothes-shedding.  It probably didn’t help that you stacked them on the table in the shape of a TIE fighter, either.”

Stiles’ jaw tightens.  “It was a subtle commentary on the temperature of their establishment.  Also on intergalactic solar-powered spaceships.”

Derek’s eyes pinch.  “Was it?”

He’s distracted from Stiles’ tirade of an answer, though he does catch something about Lando Calrissian and the unfair standard of ‘hero’ in the Star Wars universe, by someone loudly bemoaning, “Goddamn, I think they’re actually done; I can finally hear myself think again.”  Not a big leap to assume it’s downstairs neighbor, Larry – as Derek’s found out, who’s lodged about twelve letters of complaint with Derek’s mailbox and who can’t seem to make his own partner sigh, let alone moan.

Derek feels a bit bad for Janie, she seems nice enough if persistently a bit stressed.  Derek gets that.  The girl probably hasn’t had an orgasm in months.

Peg, a friend of Larry’s girlfriend, who doesn’t share one iota of his douchebaggery says with exaggerated sympathy, “Disappointing, isn’t it?  I’m guessing it’s nothing but AutoTuned Kanye West and where you should take your next pecs selfie.  I vote for cold storage, by the way.  Think about it,” she affects her best dudebro voice, “you’d _pop_ , bro.”

“Why are you even here?”  It’s not quite a whine, but it’s close.

Peg’s voice is sly when she counters, almost sniggering, “You know those end up on gay porn sites, right?”

Derek grabs Stiles’ wrist before he can reacquaint himself with his t-shirt and slides his hand up to his elbow, feeling cooling sweat and pebbled skin under his palm, before detouring to the flat of his stomach, which lurches, coarse thatch of hair leading down to Stiles’ still-softening cock that’s messy with his come.  Derek pulls him back into his chest, rising dick pressed to his ass cheek.  “You started this one,” Derek tells him, snagging his earlobe between his teeth.

Stiles moans, perfectly, deeply, loud enough that Larry starts cursing vilely, and he tilts his head back against Derek’s shoulder, drops his shirt, twists his fingers up in the base of Derek’s hair and yanks him closer.  Derek works Stiles slowly back to hardness, backing off when there’s a hiss of discomfort, dragging tongue and nose and breath against Stiles’ neck, the thumb and index finger of his free hand wrapped loosely around the base of it, palm pressing against his sternum.

Stiles grinds back into him, steady groaning as he gets Derek hard all over again and Derek grins sharply when Larry starts slamming doors.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, so,” Stiles cuts himself off by slamming his foot down into the kitchen floor once he finally manages to get his shoe out from under his heel to pull it on.  He props himself back up with his hand on the counter, grinning victoriously, and finishes his thought, “my dad knows you’re back in town.”

“Okay,” Derek says slowly, waiting.

Stiles coughs.  “And that we’re banging pretty regular.”  Derek raises his eyebrows, prompting, when he doesn’t keep going.  Stiles rubs at the back of his neck.  It’s covered in red-purple bruises from Derek’s mouth.  “So, uh, he’s having this outdoor barbecue thing on Saturday and we’re going.”

Derek sighs.  “I’m in for what exactly?”

Stiles winces.  “Feeling about a foot tall and seeing his gun collection up close and personal?” is his best guess.  “I reminded him regular bullets couldn’t kill you and he just got this Draco Malfoy, I-ain’t-nobody’s-fool smirk on his face _so_.”

“Great,” Derek says blandly.

“Sorry,” Stiles offers, not sounding it.  He’s more honest with: “It’s going to suck and he doesn’t like you, especially for me, and I know that seems big,” he adds, when Derek stares at him with a pronounced frown.  It’s not like he thought there was a parent out there that would approve of him but he was kind of hoping he’d get the benefit of the doubt before he fucked it up.  “My dad’s going to make it seem even bigger this weekend but, ultimately, it doesn’t matter.”  He shrugs as he pulls on his shirt.  “He claims he wants me to be happy and he knows that if he’s going to stand by that story then you’re in the picture.”

Derek’s smile rolls up one side of his face because, much as Stiles tried to downplay that, Derek is what makes him happy.  It’s the greatest aspiration he’s ever had and he’s accomplished it.

As it turns out, it really wasn’t that hard at all.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t see the gun collection.  He does get to feel about a foot tall.  Stiles goes inside to piss and the sheriff settles into the vacant lawn chair at Derek’s side.  He’s put on a few more pounds since Derek last saw him but he’s as sharp as ever, squints against the sun’s disappearing rays and says without looking over at him, “I think you know you’re not what I would’ve chosen for him.”

Derek swallows.  He wouldn’t have chosen himself either but he’s been given the position and he would fight and die for it now.  “Yes.”

“You’re a werewolf, for one,” he says, tone conversational and light like he doesn’t want to risk anyone overhearing and coming to Derek’s aid.  They could be discussing the weather for all the inflection in the sheriff’s voice, “and I keep hoping he’ll find his way out of all this, live a life of safe, normal, mind-numbing boredom.”  Derek had hoped that for him too, once upon a time.  Now he hopes they can find that together.  “The age difference, criminal record, lack of income and almost definite psychological issues don’t thrill me either.”  It’s like one anvil after another really and Derek wishes the beer in his hand, or the three before it, had any effect on him at all.  “You’re not what I want for him but, as I’ve recently been reminded, it’s not about my wants.  It’s about his and he wants you.” 

Derek grins down at the peeling label, the yellow-green grass beneath the sole of his boot, the fray at the bottom of his jeans where he's worn away the hem from repeatedly stepping on it.  It’s not something he’ll ever tire of hearing.  That Stiles wants him, chose him, picks him day in and day out.  That he’s a part of his life, entrenched to the point that Stiles’ _father_ has to accommodate him.  They’re… solid, and he’s someone worth noting.

The sheriff does look at him now, leans forward and waits till he has Derek’s eye.  “So I’ll tell you now: You’re going to be good for him.”

“I am,” Derek promises.

The sheriff chuckles, shakes his head and there’s a low undertone to his words that has Derek’s instincts pinging ‘danger.’  “No, son, I wasn’t asking.  You’re going to be good for him and if there’s ever a point where you think maybe you’re not making his life _better_ , you’re going to decide not to be in it.  Got that?”

Derek stares at him, surprised the sheriff thinks he has to say that.  If he _ever_ thought Stiles was unhappy with him, he wouldn’t make him stay.  He wouldn’t _let him_ stay.  He says without the slightest hesitation, “Yes, sir.”

The sheriff claps a hand on his shoulder, stands.  “Good man.”

 

* * *

 

He grabs Stiles’ hips in the car later, gripping tight – probably too tight, tight enough to leave marks, holds him still on top of him and growls, swears: “I am going to be good for you.”

Stiles stares down at him wide-eyed, pupils blown, chest heaving, eyes nearly crossing when Derek thrusts up into him as punctuation to his promise.  He scrabbles harder at the ceiling, uses it to push back down onto Derek’s dick and decides, turning it into a competition the way he does with everything, “Yeah, well, I’m gonna be even better for you.”

Derek’s grin is sharp and he slams his hips up, just to make Stiles moan loud enough to set off car alarms.  “You’re on.”

 

* * *

 

Stiles uses his key, walks into the loft and pulls a bottle of Derek’s shampoo out of his backpack, thrusting it into Derek’s hands.  He taps the label, tilts his head.  “That’s the right one, right?  I stood in the aisle smelling different bottles for, like, twenty minutes.”  He flails, as though that proves it.  “I think the stocker-guy thought I was _in_ sane and now everything smells like soapy beach towel but I think that’s the one you get.”  He smirks, throws out an arm and makes a ‘gimme’ motion with his hand.  “Here, give me your head.  Let me smell it.”

His eyes are scrunched up over his grin and Derek carefully sets the – correct – bottle on the table, because Stiles knew he was running out after they’d showered together yesterday, wanted to do him a small, meaningless favor, hadn’t remembered the exact kind and wanted to get it right so he’d stood in the aisle matching them against his memory of the scent of Derek freshly showered until he had it. 

And it’s probably the most romantic fucking thing Derek’s ever heard of.  He sinks down to his knees.

Stiles frowns at him, points out, “You went the wrong direction.”

Derek pauses, rubbing a thumb over the bulge in Stiles' jeans, then the flat of his nose once Stiles' cock gets more defined in the confines, raises an arch eyebrow.  “You didn’t say ‘give me head?’”

Stiles blinks, pulls up the hem of his t-shirt with grabby fingers and says slowly, “... yes, I did.”

At the first touch of his mouth on denim, Stiles groans, vein throbbing against the part of Derek’s lips.  He collapses back against the door and startles when there’s a loud banging on the other side.  Derek listens, _smells_ , narrows his eyes.  “Larry,” he says tersely.

Stiles scoffs knowingly.  Derek hadn’t realized he was in on the neighborly gossip about them, he certainly hasn’t brought it up to him, but he’s glad to see it hasn’t quieted Stiles down any.

Stiles moves away from the knocking, adjusts his dick so it’s not quite so obvious how hard he still is, and Derek pulls back the door, already glaring.  Larry’s made of muscles, entitlement and seems to only own one pair of flip-flops.  His eyes are closed like he’s got a speech memorized he’s reciting from, stubby blond lashes fluttering like it’s an effort to keep so much in his head when all of it wants to come out his mouth, preferably sans filter.  “A miasma of one-upmanship sex constantly reeks from your apartment.”  He opens his eyes, shoots daggers between the two of them.  “You should look into that.”

Derek opens his mouth to correct the faulty belief that they’re only having this much sex in an effort to ruin Larry’s day, every day.  When Derek would have, and pretty much has had, sex with Stiles any and everywhere without needing anyone to overhear it.  Stiles leans around his shoulder before he can apprise Larry of that reality and says, “Dude, you just wanted to prove you knew the word ‘miasma.’  Get out of here with your logophile superiority.”

Larry purposefully makes eye contact with Derek and not Stiles.  Derek suspects it’s because he doesn’t know what ‘logophile’ means as he’d only consulted with the dictionary about ‘miasma’ for this encounter and is floundering a bit now.  “Maybe get him a ball gag.”

Stiles steps completely around Derek now and Derek lets him.  “Don’t try and invent kinks for us.”  He narrows his eyes but doesn’t say any of the truly horrible things he could say.  That’s personal growth right there.  “We do just fine on our own, thanks.”

Larry seems to accept that Stiles is, unsurprisingly, the mouthy one, redirects his full attention on him and accuses, “You’re loud.”

Stiles shrugs.  “You’re annoying.  I don’t knock on your door to tell you about it.  It’s called,” he exaggerates the vowels, “common decency.”

Larry gives a very hearty fake laugh, throwing his head back and the whole shebang.  Derek kind of wants to punch him for that.  He’s pretty sure Stiles does too, the way his fingers tighten around the doorframe.  “You’re going to lecture me on decency?   _You_?”

Stiles glances back at Derek, shrugs in a consulting fashion and scratches his chin.  “I wasn’t planning a whole lecture,” he admits.  “I could probably put a bitchin’ PowerPoint together though, yeah.  Reconvene at your place at quarter after three this a.m.?”

Larry doesn’t look amused. 

“Stiles,” Derek says, slinging an arm around his waist, “come on, be considerate.  How ‘bout three on the dot?”  Larry makes an angry, tutting sound but storms off without actually saying anything to either of them, flip-flops flopping, muttering under his breath about moving out and filing complaints with the state.  Derek can only hope.  He frowns after him, says, “I don’t think he’s into it.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna stop me,” Stiles says.  It probably won’t.  Derek’s almost certain he’s going to set their alarm, go downstairs at three in the morning and duct tape his presentation slides to Larry’s door.  He closes Derek’s, turns around, eyebrows up, and adds, “You’re going to get rotting fish in your vents.”

Derek shrugs.  Werewolf senses will help him out on that one. 

Stiles frowns, concedes without any real apology behind it, “Maybe I am a little loud.”

Derek flops down on the couch and offers, “Maybe I don’t give a shit about that and my neighbors are prudes?”  He really does not want Stiles to feel like he can’t be vocal, especially as Stiles has made him come from just the sounds he’s made before.

Stiles sits down next to him, turned so he’s looking at Derek.  “You’re not though, you know,” he says like he didn’t register Derek spoke at all.

Derek waits for him to elaborate.  Because he will, once he realizes his thought process wasn’t followable.  Which he usually figures out all on his own.

He does.  “You don’t make any noise.  At all.  Ever.”  He settles back against the couch and says with affected nonchalance, “Might give a guy a complex, is all.”  He’s clearly playing it up, trying to get Derek to agree to some idea he has in his head, but there’s something like truth in the patter of his heartbeat that Derek doesn’t like one bit.

He rolls his eyes.  “Because I’m obviously not enjoying myself.”  Stiles can’t actually believe that.  He’s smarter than that.  His self-confidence though, that still needs work.  Not as much as it did when he was a teenager but there’s still a ways left to go on that.

Stiles turns and grins at him, all wide and full of teeth.  “Maybe if we flipped positions and I fucked the ever loving shit out of you?” he offers, words rising as he says them.

Derek leans back against the arm of the couch, gets his legs around Stiles’ hips, pulls him into the V of his thighs and demands, “Fuck me then.”

Stiles leans over him, palm on the armrest keeping him upright, expression looking a little dazed, like he’d expected a fight.  Derek has no idea why.  He wants everything with Stiles, he trusts him more than he trusts himself and Stiles makes it almost too easy to want the things he wants.  Because what he wants is Derek, Derek’s happiness, Derek’s laugh, Derek close and nearby and wanting him back and Derek can relate to that because it's exactly the same for him.  Stiles licks his lower lip, shakes his head, smirks.  “Nuh uh, bed, properly, this is a whole de-virginizing the prom queen montage.”

“I fucked you on the floor for the first time,” Derek says, not to be contrary.  But maybe a little to be contrary.

Stiles shrugs.  “Yeah, well you were bad at it.  We need candles and rose petals and the music of Sting.”

“Bad at it?” Derek parrots, sharp.

Stiles stares into his eyes, brows up and says deadly serious, “I did _not_ feel like a prom queen.”

There’s lube and stretching and an abundance of patience and Derek comes from three fingers, then again from Stiles’ dick.  Stiles isn’t in any hurry and is all caressing and licking and _home_ and Derek still takes his pleasure quietly and Stiles is good enough to not seem disappointed by it even once.  He lifts Derek's leg, hooks his knee over his shoulder, and when he finally slides inside Derek for the first time, eyes locked on each other’s, unintentionally intimate, he gets a sound out of him, a late return to the gift he’d given Derek five and a half years ago, a punched out, brutally honest, “I love you.”

Stiles bites at Derek’s lower lip, drags it into his mouth, kisses him until his mouth is numb and Stiles’ cheeks are all stubble burn.  He’s gently rocking until he isn't, until he's fucking Derek like he promised, making his breath catch in his chest and his spine arch until it feels like it's at a permanent curve.  Stiles doesn’t pull out and Derek’s half-hard again by the time he’s finished once.  He slip-slides against Derek's skin, stretching out and going boneless on top of him rather than rolling off and Derek means to tell him to get off but forgets somewhere between burying his nose in his messy hair and dragging fuzzy-tingly fingers up his back.

He says the next morning, between coffee and the Frosted Flakes Stiles insists on _inhaling_ in front of him, “I meant it.”

Stiles looks up at him, surprise in his expression and it kills Derek a little bit, to realize he didn’t know it.  Then Stiles rolls his eyes and murders that thought nearly as soon as it’d formed.  “I know,” he says, as though it’s beyond obvious.  Derek hopes it is.  “You’ve told me hundreds of times, you know that?”  Derek blinks at him, thinking he must talk in his sleep when Stiles stands up, claps his hands on either side of Derek’s face, index fingers in front of his ears.  He presses their foreheads together.  “Derek.  You may not use words but you’ve made that work for you, evolved not to need them.  I know ‘cause you never let me forget.”  He presses a chaste but firm kiss to his mouth, which turns out to be a distraction technique as he lifts his hands to Derek’s unwashed, greasy hair and twists the top of it into a barrel curl.  He beams at his handiwork.  “Now you look like Elvis, you’re welcome.”

He smiles sleepily and hops off to the shower and Derek realizes they both say it, all the time, in a million different ways, never the same and never meant for anyone but the two of them.

 

* * *

 

Derek’s contemplating the best way to ask Stiles to move in.  Well.  To alert Stiles to the fact that he already lives with Derek so he might as well just make it official, tell his dad, stop paying for the crap bungalow he hasn’t seen the inside of in two months, invite Scott and Kira over instead of always shuttling off to their place, when Stiles shoves his pen cap into the middle of his chin and says with a bland sort of curiosity, “What if I didn’t want to stay here?”

Derek blinks at him, wonders if he didn’t just ask while his mind was whirring through the arguments for it, trying to hide the intense gaping wound those words have torn into him when Stiles straightens up and rolls his eyes, saying almost viciously, “No, I didn’t—” he stops, glaring at Derek like he’s offended he’d ever even had the thought that Stiles’ future plans might not include him, “I _mean_ what if I wanted to leave here _with you_ ,” he huffs, as though that was the most obvious part of it, “under cover of darkness and with maybe a stolen ruby or something, just to set the mood.”  He points at Derek.  “We would have to sneak onto a train in that scenario.”

Derek doesn’t have to think about it.  “Beacon Hills hasn’t been home for a long time,” he says carefully, shrugs, “and I would have no reason to stay then.”

Stiles seems to pause, letting that sink in all over again.  That there’s a whole one reason Derek’s here and it’s currently wobbling a pen back and forth, waiting for it to go rubbery.  He’s quiet for a few minutes then starts, “Do you ever think about—” he looks at Derek seriously, says, “What if you hadn’t come back?”

Derek swallows.  He does.  It wakes him in a cold sweat and sheer panic on nights Stiles decides he wants to sleep in his own bed.  They’re fewer and farther between, both the nightmares and those nights.  Mainly because Stiles considers ‘his own bed’ wherever Derek’s sleeping – the bed, the couch, the armchair at the sheriff’s, the balcony.  “Yes.”

“And?” Stiles prods.

Derek shrugs and says out loud the only thought that can get him back to sleep, that can shove down that particular rising fear, “I don’t think there’s any way I wouldn’t have wound up back here eventually.”  He believes that.  Something would’ve led him back here because he’s pretty convinced all his roads had this destination at the end of them.

It’s quiet enough that Derek can hear every nuance of Stiles’ breaths.  He’s pretty sure, in the span of five minutes, they’ve both committed themselves to this for a lifetime.  He’s almost worried it’ll change them somehow when Stiles quips, “For Larry, right?”

It’s so unexpected, so light in the air of heaviness, that Derek laughs, rolls his eyes and agrees, “Yeah, Stiles, for Larry.”

**Author's Note:**

> The only place I am consistently active (and inconsistently fun!): [tumblr](http://wellhalesbells.tumblr.com/).


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